Mercer University School of Medicine Libraries
Identify a health concern Example: you are working in the East Georgia Healthcare Center in Swainsboro and notice that a lot of your patients have diabetes.
Why are there so many people in Emanuel County with diabetes?
How you conceptualize your topic affects how you search for relevant information. Consider the interaction and interdependence of various factors
Think about the wider context of your topic. Do some preliminary exploration.
Don’t forget: You can copy- paste this slide into other presentations, and move or resize the poll.
What percentage of the United States population is diagnosed with diabetes? You will need to look for statistics.
To find health statistics, go to the libraries page at brary and choose Health Statistics & Research from the pulldown menu. brary Click on CDC: Diseases and Conditions
What percentage of people in Emanuel County have diabetes? /atlas.html /atlas.html Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Diabetes Public Health Resources, Diabetes Interactive Atlas, 2009 data
Why do more adults in Emanuel County have diabetes than the national average? If your topic is too narrow, it may prove difficult to find research If your topic is too broad, it may be impossible to cope with the vast amount of literature on an unfocused topic
What does PICO stand for? PP stands for Population or Patient II stands for Intervention CC stands for Comparison OO stands for Outcome
What Population do you want to research? In this case, it is adults with diabetes.
What would be an Intervention? In this case, think about what might contribute to diabetes.
Sometimes a Point-of-Care database with distilled information will help you focus. Go to the Dynamed Database (found in the pulldown menu on the library page edu/library) edu/library
What percentage of adults in the United States Smoke? veReport/InteractiveReports.aspx veReport/InteractiveReports.aspx Centers for Disease Control, Smoking and Tobacco Use, Interactive Maps, 2010
What is the percentage of adults in Emanuel County smoke? eorgia/2013/measure/factors/9/map eorgia/2013/measure/factors/9/map County Health Rankings and Roadmaps, 2013
To find health statistics, go to the libraries page at brary and choose Health Statistics & Research from the pulldown menu. brary Click on CDC: Diseases and Conditions
What is your Intervention? In this case it would be smoking cessation Is there a comparison? You don’t have to have one. What is the Outcome you want? In this case it would be improved health
Your PICO question would be In adults with Diabetes Mellitus, does smoking cessation result in improved health?
Go to the library webpage at and select PubMed from the pulldown menu.
You can type in keywords
If you want to narrow results, select MESH Databases
Type “Smoking Cessation”, select it, and add it to the search builder
Type “diabetes,” select Diabetes Mellitus, and add it to the search builder
Click Search PubMed
View your results
To narrow further, you can can filter your results
In this case limited to Randomized Controlled Trials
Click on the “Get MUSM Medical Libraries” button to see if the libraries have a subscription/access so that full text is free to you.
If we don’t have a subscription, we can order the article for you from another library via InterLibrary Loan. Go to the libraries webpage at library and look for InterLibrary Loan under Services. library It might arrive the same day, or it might take several days, depending on the library that owns it.
What do you do if you have too many results? Think about your PICO. Do you need to refine and narrow your research? What if you have too few results? Think about your PICO. Do you need to refine and broaden your research?
If you are not getting many results, maybe you need to look in another database. Try Google Scholar Go to the library webpage at and select Google Scholar from the pulldown menu.
You can refine your results by using the Advanced Search
You can look for all of the words, the exact phrase, a least one of the words, without the words, anywhere in the article, in the title of the article, by a specific author, or in a specific journal or a specific date.
You can sort by relevance or by date. Click on “Get MUSM Libraries” to see if the libraries have a subscription/access so that full text is free to you.
Does involving the male partners of pregnant teens increase the uptake of prenatal care? Does eliminating vending machines in middle schools result in decreased student obesity in those schools? In a workplace with a mostly sedentary environment, do workplace ergonomic interventions result in increased workforce productivity? In women with HIV, do peer-based interventions reduce health inequities? In children and youth aged 5 to 17 years, what is the effect of regular and frequent physical activity at school on measures of learning performance or absenteeism? Are adults or children exposed to poor air quality at increased risk for impaired cognitive performance?
Macon: Savannah: